This should be the case every time. Test cricket is about having players for all sorts of different conditions. It’s about anticipating how conditions will change as the match wears on.

Half the point of Test cricket is that you can have a guy standing around for three and a half days who then comes in and wins you the match. Not picking a spinner says spin bowling has no major part to play in the game. For that, you should be spun out and your fast bowlers should be worn into the ground.

Test cricket is broad, varied and rich and anything that goes against that is sacrilege.

4 Appeals

I have a feeling, Australia picked the best team that could draw the game. Allow England to bat long enough to allow them a draw. But with England scoring only 330 odd, and with Broad on a roll….Australia must surely sense the Ashes slipping out of their grasp. I say England wins big…. by Day 4

They were cheap. And the only ones I could get by the time I got my arse into gear to buy.

On an entirely different note, having just witnessed the Comedey of Errors that is Ponting getting run out, closely followed by Clarke’s brief appearance, The Australian has decided that now is the ideal time to put up the new bathroom shelf that has been there all week waiting to be done…